First Sight
by Linstock
Summary: Uhura see Spock for the first time.
1. Chapter 1

AU: I was thinking of a short story of the origin of Spock and Uhura but there are so many wonderful stories already I decided to let it be. Because these are already written I'll publish some snippets I had jotted down about very early encounters.

**Chapter 1: First sighting.**

She first noticed Commander Spock at her class's welcome reception. It was an event aimed at allowing recruits to meet the teaching faculty members and some notable service veterans in informal surroundings. It was in a large room packed with nervous and excited recruits and tolerant, bored veterans and voluble slightly crazed looking staff.

Cadet Uhura was watching the room from the vantage point of the balcony; from there she could see the whole room. The finger food and drinks were disappearing rapidly. Everyone in the room was moving, circulating, milling and suffused with energy (recruits) or palpable ennui (staff). He was the only still point. Tall and lean and silent he stood with his hands behind his back, silently observing: present yet apart. He would lean forward slightly to listen to a question or comment from a recruit bold enough or inebriated enough to approach him. He listened, considered his reply and delivered it in a short statement. Clearly this closed the conversations the recruits never replied to him. He neither ate nor drank. He nodded briefly to staff and veterans. Uhura had the strange impression that he was the gravitational centre of the room and if he left all the milling individuals would have no "gravity" to hold them and would spin off into the surrounding campus in random patterns.

"Fanciful," she chided her self, "you'd better think more clearly than that if you want to be successful in Starfleet."

As if one man could be the gravitation centre of a room. Yet, as she turned to leave the balcony, she felt his pull.


	2. Chapter 2 Teacher

Impressions 2

Teacher.

Nyota's first impression of Commander Spock was reinforced when she saw him teach. Other professors had bounced around the dais waving their hands or tried to crack jokes or stammered or lost their place or train of thought or gone off on tangents or droned on endlessly. He did not gesture or emote. He was still and every word he uttered had weight, every thing he said was in the minimum necessary words. He used language like a knife paring away the dross to the essential meaning; or a magnifying glass exposing hidden details. He imparted the maximum information in the minimum syllables. To a student of communication it was perfect, awe inspiring and not human.


	3. Chapter 3 Engulfment

AU: This is a collection of short random pieces. They were not written as a story although they do follow a general progression. They are the random ideas that occur to me and do not fit elsewhere. Comments are always welcome.

I was reading through the Vulcan language Dictionary and a word intrigued me. Of course I had to test it out on Spock! How could I resist?

***

Commander Spock knew the name Cadet Nyota Uhura. He was vaguely aware she was the slim cadet who wore her hair in a long pony tail. She was one face in a sea of faces during a lecture and he could not clearly recall what she looked like. He knew her by her work. Her assignments were praiseworthy and showed great promise. He had decided to express this to her personally because he believed that a teacher should show appreciation of excellence. At the end of his lecture, after the latest assignment grades had been sent to each student's PADD, he approached her. Cadet Uhura was putting some items in her bag and had her back toward him.

"Cadet Uhura," he said and she turned towards him.

"Yes Sir," she said and looked up.

"You analysis of the text in the last assignment was excellent Cadet. Your work is generally of a high standard and you are showing great aptitude for this subject." His mouth spoke the words clearly and without emotion as he looked into her eyes for the first time.

He experienced a shift within himself, a precise almost mechanical locking into place and a sensation analogous to solving a vital and infinitely complex mathematical equation. It was done. It was irrevocable. This was fact. This altered state rippled through him, suffusing his mind and body and engulfed him. He knew that this state was now as much part of him as the prints left by his fingertips. He also knew that as a student she was forbidden to him.

Vulcans had a word for this, Shan-ha-loch. Humans would translate this as "love at first sight". Love was too insubstantial. It was a human word describing a pattern of physiological and emotional arousal. Love could fade, and those who love could be inconstant. Shan-ha-loch was to love as a statue carved in marble was to a staue carved in ice. Spock first learned the word during his studies of the ancient texts from the time before Surak. Shan-ha-loch was celebrated in the ancient poems from the time when Vulcans still rejoiced in their passions. The word had never fully faded from use, but now it was whispered. Shan-ha-loch was the engulfment. Shan-ha–loch was an absolute; it would not fade and would admit no other. Spock had considered it a phenomenon born of the uncontrolled emotional state of pre-Surak Vulcans and that it therefore no longer existed. Now he knew he had been in error.

His world had changed silently in the time it took for her to smile warmly and say, "Thank you Commander," then turn and walk away.

He was Vulcan, he would behave as befitted a Vulcan and this new reality was his to accept and endure as best he could.

AU: Shan-ha–loch, the engulfment, from the Vulcan Language Dictionary.


	4. Chapter 4

Spock' lunch was finished but he still sat is at the back of the cafeteria and watched the male cadet's hand. If looks could kill the cadet's lifeless body would now be lying on the cafeteria floor.

Spock had been watching Uhura and her companions as they shared lunch. Lately he seemed to be constantly on edge and her presence in the same room soothed him. He was fascinated by the way she used her whole body when telling a story, acting out pieces, gesturing expansively, once even standing and performing a sinuous wriggle that seemed to emphasise some point she was making.

From his seat across the room Spock had noticed the male cadet and his friends enter the cafeteria and settle in the table behind Uhura and her companions. The sandy haired cadet with the striking blue eyes had leaned back in his chair and said something to Uhura. She had ignored him. He tried again. No response. He reached over and tugged her pony tail like it was bell pull. Spock was pleased to note the look Uhura gave the cadet. There was a brief exchange. Uhura returned to her conversation.

The sandy haired cadet reached out again. His table mates were gesturing for him to stop, but he persisted and pulled. Uhura turned eyes blazing and jaw clenched. There was another heated exchange. The sandy haired cadet stood, turned and leaned on the table next to Uhura. Again his hand, very casually, reached across and touched her hair. He rhythmically stoked her hair as he spoke, and then as the conversation continued began to twist a few strands around his fingers.

Spock's hands ached, partly from wanting to touch her hair but mostly from wanting to strangle the cadet.

If looks could kill the cadet's lifeless body would now be lying on the cafeteria floor. But looks could not kill.

Spock had told himself he would endure. He had no claim on her and no right to even want her.

He decided to eat in the officer's mess in the future.


	5. Chapter 5 Self Monitoring

First sight-

**Self monitoring.**

Spock could no longer trust himself. He was like the parent of a wilful and manipulative child. He would leave his office, firmly intending to go directly to his quarters, and find he deviated from his planned path and arrived at the cafeteria instead. He wasn't hungry, but he sat in the back tables, nursing a cup of tea, and watching...her.

Time and again he caught himself in these self deceptions with one goal, to be near Cadet Uhura. He realised that the majority of the time he was not teaching or sleeping he was within sight of her.

Spock found he needed to consciously monitor his actions and question every decision. He'd never needed to scrutinize himself in this way and it was humiliating.

Spock had always thought of himself as a person divided with his human side emotional, unpredictable and weak and his Vulcan side logical and controlled and strong; his refuge and salvation. Now he struggled with the knowledge that his Vulcan side was his emotional undoing.


	6. Chapter 6 Dialogue

**First Sight. **

**Dialogue. **

Spock's growing desperation and exhaustion finally convinced him to this try an unfamiliar mediation technique. Spock was ambivalent; however, this was a well established technique and if it succeeded it may help him endure.

He sat on the mediation mat and breathing deeply and sank through the layers of relaxation with the ease of long practice. The next step was to externalise the problem. It do this he pictured shan-ha-lock as if it was a being possessed of form and a independent of himself. It emerged in his mind as a shape, shadowy and powerful, inviting, repellent, and completely compelling.

Spock spoke to this form, "What he you to tell me?"

The whisper of thought threaded through his mind. It was truly as if shan-ha–loch spoke. "If I was gone you would mourn me."

Spoke breathed in sharply through his nose and strove to refocus his mind.

"Without me you'll once again be only half alive."

Spock's eyes snapped open. His heart was pounding and he was drenched in sweat.


	7. Chapter 7 To Miss

**First Sight. **

**To Miss. **

Miss [v.t.] to note the lack of, to notice or regret the absence of, Syn: want, crave, yearn for….

Nyota missed Commander Spock.

She hadn't realised how often he was present on the periphery of her life. This semester she didn't have any direct interaction with him as she wasn't in one of his classes. But she had still seen him frequently. They were passing encounters, he would be exiting the lift when she arrived, or walking across the quad during break, or working out in the gym at the same time that she was, he often he sat working in the library quite near the linguistic collection, or ate a solitary lunch in the back of the mess hall. He would nod an acknowledgement and she realised now she had felt a slight thrill that a professor of his standing had singled her out. He rarely acknowledged anyone else and it had made her feel … special. How many times a day had she experienced this small pleasure when she glimpsed him without really being aware? Sometimes she thought he watched her, but dismissed this as fanciful, after all, why would he? As time passed she had become accustomed to his just being around. If she had ever thought about it she would have been genuinely surprised to realise how constantly he was simply present at the edges of her day.

Strangely his absence was more substantial than his presence. Nyota had been only vaguely aware of his being gently and constantly in the background of her life.

His abrupt absence was a silent shout.


	8. Chapter 8:  Singing

**First Sight. **

**Singing.**

Commander Smith, who trained the Starfleet Academy Choir, had set the members the challenge of singing in an unusual place.

"Have fun with this," he encouraged them. "Sing somewhere exciting, interesting or even embarrassing! Let your voices expand to fill a large space, or sing in a cupboard, sing in a bus, sing on the beach. Go forth and sing!"

Nyota grinned as she remembered. Smithy was such a dynamic, flamboyant personality and so full of the joy of music. If the challenge had come from anyone else she might dismissed it; but a challenge from Smithy was irresistible.

But she was stumped. Where to sing? The shower was too obvious, Michaels had already sung in the middle of the quad and had the foresight to put a hat down and made a tidy profit too, and she heard about the consternation Meg'enpa had caused bursting into song in a physics lecture; you could trust Meg'enpa to push the limits.

About a week passed before Nyota remembered the stair well at in the linguistics building. In first year a power failure had forced her to use those stairs and she had noticed the unusual acoustics. She remembered the way her foot steps echoed and bounced as she clattered down the stairs. She was going to the language labs this afternoon, so she resolved as soon as she was finished her prac she would sing in the stair well. It would sound amazing. It was almost a pity that no one would hear.

##

Spock wrapped his longing for Cadet Uhura in layers of logic and crushed his need with duty and regulation. He furled tightly in on himself.

His world constricted to his office, his class room, and his quarters. In these places he could trust himself but the journey between them was fraught with danger.

Despite all his efforts he'd catch the occasional glimpse of Cadet Uhura. His responded at what felt like a cellular level. When he forced himself to turn away the desolation he felt was shocking.

The linguistics building was the most dangerous location as it carried the highest risk of an encounter. Spock always used the stairs to avoid the appalling possibility of meeting Cadet Uhura in a lift.

One afternoon, as he walked down the stairs, he heard her. He paused in mid step. Her class was over half an hour ago and he'd thought it safe to leave the building; evidently he'd misjudged. She was in the base of the stair well and she was singing. She hadn't heard him. He wondered what she was doing, she seemed to be experimenting, no "playing", with her voice. The stair well was basically a long tube of concrete and its hard surfaces reflected sound so it bounced and echoed in unexpected ways. He glanced over the railing and could see Cadet Uhura, her eyes shut and head tipped back as she sang her scales and then paused, presumably to listen to the acoustic effect. As she listened to the fading echoes she smiled. Then she started to sing; although Spock didn't know the language, it sounded like a lullaby.

Slowly Spock sat on a stair, leaned his head against the wall and let the sound envelop him. The song seemed to wrap around him and weave through him, a gentle rocking rhythm and caressing words. Once there was an unexpected sweep up to a high note, a pause, followed by a trilling decent. He thought of an infant swung high in the air by a doting parent and then whooshed down again into a firm embrace. The hairs on his arms rose and a thrill passed through him, then he was again wrapped in the warm blanket of the soothing lilting melody.

He became aware of his deep exhaustion caused by the unremitting struggle to subjugate his emotions. He allowed himself to imagine that Nyota sang just for him. He yearned to lie down in her song and rest. For the first time in he scarcely new how long, he felt a measure of contentment.


End file.
